No, Canada!

My former home decided to cut off its nose to spite its face.

The Liberal Party of Canada eked out an election victory last night, but again failed to gain enough seats to form a majority government. That means it still needs the support of members of smaller parties in parliament to hold power, let alone pass legislation. The Conservative Party, meanwhile, added more seats to its ranks than the Liberals, achieving its highest popular-vote percentage since 1988. Yet the Liberals are ecstatic and the Conservatives dejected. What exactly is going on in our neighbor to the north???

Here are the basics: 343 districts, known as “ridings,” were contested in the election—five more than at the last election in 2021 (there’s a lesson in that for Congress, which hasn’t grown in nearly a century). That means a party needs to win 172 seats to form a majority in Parliament. When Prime Minister Mark Carney, who took over for the rightfully beleaguered Justin Trudeau in March, called a snap election, the balance of power stood as follows: Liberals 152, Conservatives 120, Bloc Quebecois (separatists) 33, New Democratic Party (socialists) 24, Greens 2, plus three independents and four vacancies.

Now, the new election results are: Libs 169 (+17), Cons 144 (+24), BQ 22 (-11), NDP 7 (-17), Greens 1 (-1).

Notably, the Liberals got 43.7% of the popular vote, while the conservatives got 41.3%, which combined for the highest two-party vote since 1958. So there was a movement from both the Bloc and the NDP (and the Greens, and the populist People’s Party) as Canadians consolidated around the big parties.